Chapter 1: Just Another Day

This is a story that happened not too long ago, although you might not even realize it. It begins under the waves. In the largest ocean of Popstar, there was a hidden underwater kingdom. This was a peaceful place, mainly because it was the only kingdom around. The king and queen were benevolent to their people and always responded quickly to problems at hand. They also had two children, the future rulers of the water.

One day, an unrecorded one at that, the princess was taking what was supposed to be a relaxing stroll around the outside of the castle. She observed the guards, who were taking their afternoon nap, and continued onward towards the coral bed garden. Suddenly, she realized that her brother, the prince, was once again lagging behind, as he was talking to a couple of common folk. She crossed her arms and started tapping her foot impatiently on the soft sand.

"Aqua! AQUA!" Reacting to his sister's cry, Aqua gave a fond farewell to the citizens and started to run towards her.

"I'm coming, Marsha!" As he hurried to meet up with Marsha, he tripped over what seemed like nothing, scraping his face as he landed at her feet. Marsha, not too surprised at his fall, gave him a disgusted face.

"Really? You can't go through life tripping everywhere. It'll give you a bad image. Not only that, but it makes me look bad!"

"Oh, please, sis! Not the royalty lecture again! Can't we just enjoy ourselves while we don't have any real responsibilities?"

"Aqua, when are you going to realize that we could become king and queen at any given moment? Our parents could die of anything! They could get killed in battle, become victims of treason (like that would happen), get eaten by a shark, contract food poisoning…"

As her list expanded, Aqua started to feel stressed. He hated this particular portion of the lecture and couldn't stand how sick and twisted Marsha's thoughts must've become to make up such a list in the first place. He never heard the full list once in his life.

"NO! Stop it, Marsha! You're scaring me! I don't want to think about that right now!"

"Think about what right now?" spoke a familiar voice. The two siblings spun around to see that their mother and father were right behind them. Aqua's eyes flooded with tears as he ran to hug them.

"Mom! Dad! Thank goodness you're still alive!" His father, King Conch, turned to see his daughter blushing and nervously laughing.

"Marsha?"

"…Yes, Daddy?"

"Have you been telling your brother the 101 ways in which we'll randomly die…again?"

"But Daddy, how is he supposed to learn the harsh realities if I don't tell him?" The king heaved a disappointed sigh.

"We'll discuss this later. That's not why we came."

"Sweetie," The queen began, "Your father and I have decided that it's time we place the two of you into combat training." As usual, Marsha was always the first to question things.

"Combat training? Why? What for?" The king smiled.

"We just want you to be prepared when the time comes." He went on to explain. "Children, there's no guarantee that you'll be in this santuary all your life. Sure, the only real danger here as of now is the occasional shark attack, but you never know when random chance will-"

He never finished the statement because at that momnet, as if on cue, a sudden cry for help could be heard in the distance.